Disguised pets

http://www.josezanni.com/mascotasdisfrazadas/index.php?menu=inicio&pais=en

My good friend José Zanni has opened a new site, Disguised pets. My cat (in the small picture) was the first pet to be featured, and little by little a gallery is being made with pictures of pets from all over the world. The site is still very young and was originally made in spanish, so some paragraphs are still waiting to be translated in the english part; in case there are any doubts, I’ll translate below the rules for sending pictures, as explained in the “send us your pet” page:

1.Send the picture in JPEG format, along with your name, location and a short description.
2.The pictures sent musn’t exceed 1MB.
3.There´s no need to send a thumbnail, they do it for you.
4.All the pictures sent will be reviewed; please send you best picture only 😉

14 million for an aibo?

Aibo is the name of the robotic pets brand that Sony was producing until very recently. Now discontinued, I understand that the prices for second hand units may rise… but I have just found this aibo selling for 7.917.029,53 EUR, which sounds a little too expensive. However, to my surprise there´s this other aibo selling for 14.639.379,30 EUR!! I wonder if there´s something fishy going on: take a look at the bidding history, you may be surprised… The aibos are announced as “complete & immaculate”.

ps. But if you really want them, they´re still on sale… 😉

Update A few hours later, one of the aibos has been retired and the other one has had its price reduced, the high bids canceled.

The incredible Robopet

,or When aliens mate with aibo

a robot by Mark Tilden

http://www.robopetonline.com/

Robopet is the perfect fusion of technology and personality. He “comes alive” with a combination of user-controlled movements and autonomous, free-roaming behaviors, some of them naughty and some of them nice. And, at seven inches, he’s the perfect interactive pet to take anywhere!

A few days ago I found Robopet while walking down the toy section in a nearby mall (don´t raise your eyebrows. Since we are approaching Christmas the toy section has taken over the entire place. Anyway, I was searching for toys for my little nephew. For when I have one, that is). That first contact was kinda tepid: flanked by a bunch of huge Roboraptors, the much smaller robopets didn´t really stand out very well on the shelves. However, I decided long ago that Roboraptor is too expensive for my budget nephew, so I took a box with one robopet and looked at it carefully. Now, after some time, several reviews read and a few videos watched, I still look at it with the same “what the …?” expression. I like robots very much, and robopet seems to feature some of the things that made aibo so interesting for a fraction of the price: it moves smoothly, has several well thought interactions, runs on batteries (I wonder how long they last), and can either be autonomous (to impress oneself) or remote controlled (to impress oneself´s friends). However, it seems that for some reason I can´t get accustomed to the way it looks. Quoting a PC Magazine Article describing the robot, “Robopet is, more accurately, a skeletal representation of a small Chihuahua’s physical anatomy, especially in the legs, which have been engineered to realistically interpret the bones and tendons of a dog”. Well, I don´t know if I´ll buy the robot, but of one thing I´m sure: chihuahuas will never look the same to me. 😛